Is AKP revolution devouring its own children too?

It is the fate of all revolutions to devour their own children as they clear obstacles from the path. If you consider the Justice and Development Party's (AK Parti) time in power to be a "democratic revolution through votes," (or the "AK revolution" as the official party line goes), you may conclude that history has started to repeat itself within the AK Parti.

When the AK Parti was established in 2001, there were 70 names among its founders - though the public did not know much about most of them. Almost all the most popular names were from the Islamist tradition - former members of the Welfare Party (RP) led by Necmettin Erbakan but closed by the Constitutional Court in 1998 - while a few others were from other right-wing and conservative parties. The 70 names included seasoned politicians like Cemil Çiçek, Bülent Ar?nç, Abdullah Gül, Mehmet Ali ?ahin, Abdüllatif ?ener, and Hüseyin Çelik, all of whom are now familiar to the public from parliamentary politics. There were also leading names from the state bureaucracy, like retired ambassador Ya?ar Yak??, who was not even an Islamist or conservative, but rather a staunch democrat, which helped contribute to the image inside and outside Turkey that the AK Parti was something new and refreshing. Yak?? went on to become the first AK Parti foreign minister after the party won power in 2002 election. 

Of course, another founder was the rising star of the Turkish Islamist/conservative wing, Tayyip Erdo?an, a former mayor of Istanbul who had spent time in jail for reading a poem with religious sentiments during an election campaign. Erdo?an was the key figure in the AK Parti's leading triumvirate, which also consisted of Gül and Ar?nç.

All three demonstrated exemplary teamwork while fighting the...